Hobson's Choice
by Lynse
Summary: Mr. Lancer hadn't meant to see what he did, nor to eavesdrop for quite that long, but now that he had…. He couldn't exactly deny what he knew. And, really, there was only one choice of action in the end. (Originally a one-shot, currently a two-shot)
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Credit to FantasticWhovian (on tumblr and the AO3; not sure if they're the same one on this site) for coming up with a title for me; I wrote this ficlet for sweaterblue on tumblr a few years ago and merely had it listed under their prompt, 'being watched', since I couldn't think of a half-decent title. *grins* Blood ahead, but nothing too debilitating. Danny's remarkably resilient, after all. Standard disclaimers apply.

* * *

Lancer checked his watch and knocked on the door again. He was on time. In fact, he'd been here early, and now it was quarter past seven. Evidently, Mr. and Mrs. Fenton had forgotten all about the appointment he'd requested.

He didn't make it a habit of going to people's homes. He preferred to keep parent-teacher relationships in the professional environment of the school, but he'd wanted to include Danny in this meeting, and he thought young Mr. Fenton would be more comfortable in his own home. Jack and Maddie were aware of Danny's absences, of course, and of his dismal homework attempts, sliding grades, and tendency to fall asleep in class. What Lancer did not know was how they were addressing the matter, as whatever they were doing clearly wasn't working.

He wasn't sure Danny would give him answers. He'd certainly given the boy plenty of opportunities to do so before, to no avail, and if his parents weren't aware of the root of the problem, he wasn't likely to reveal it to them while Lancer was there. But Lancer at least hoped to start that conversation so that Danny would know he could talk to one of them. That he _should_ talk to one of them.

Lancer tried the doorbell—again, not for the first time—and listened as it rang through what must be an empty house. Even if Jack and Maddie were down in their lab, they would surely have heard the bell going at least once. He had listened to the radio on the drive over and heard of a ghost attack by the Nasty Burger. The Red Huntress had already been on the scene, indiscriminately shooting Phantom and Skulker, but perhaps the Fentons had heard the same report and gone to help.

Ghost fights didn't usually last half an hour, but any number of things could have delayed them.

Lancer sat down on the stoop and rubbed his temples. Maybe it was best to reschedule after all. Danny and Jazz didn't seem to be home, either, and Danny might have gone out with Sam and Tucker even if he had remembered Lancer's requested meeting. But if he rescheduled—

There was a heavy thud from somewhere inside the house, accompanied by a shrill scream and a loud crack, quickly followed by a secondary crash—toppling furniture, maybe? Lancer jumped to his feet, wincing as the movement jarred his back, and tried the door.

Locked.

He knocked again and called, but whoever was inside didn't hear him or couldn't answer. He walked over to peer into the living room window but couldn't see anything amiss. Something surely was, though, so he jogged around to try the back entrance. The back gate wasn't locked, so he let himself in through the fence and walked up the steps to the screen door that led into the kitchen.

His hand froze on the door handle when he saw Danny Phantom inside, sitting between two snapped halves of what had once been the kitchen table.

The young ghost was covered in ectoplasm. A cut on his forehead had bled down the side of his face, staining his skin green, but that surely wasn't what had his face twisting in pain as he bent in on himself, completely oblivious to Lancer's presence. His suit was torn in multiple places, but the worst was a gash that ran from his left shoulder, along his collarbone, and across his torso. It ended partway down his right side, just above his floating ribs, if Lancer had to guess—and he'd tended to enough flesh wounds since the ghost attacks in Amity Park had begun to have a fairly good idea.

It looked like Phantom had gotten on the wrong side of a machete—which, considering he had been fighting Skulker, the Ghost Zone's Greatest Hunter, was a distinct possibility.

Phantom was vainly trying to hold his wound closed, no doubt hoping his body would repair itself more quickly that way, but all he seemed to get for his effort was a dark stain on his gloves.

Lancer was horrified, knowing how bad that wound would be if Phantom weren't a ghost. But why would he have come _here_, of all places, even if he'd seen the Fenton RV out and about and known the famed ghost hunters weren't home? He had no guarantee that they'd be gone for long and certainly no way of knowing they hadn't set any defences before they'd left.

And that's when Jazz Fenton skidded into the kitchen with an armful of bandages and similar supplies. She was sporting a fair bit of ectoplasm on her clothes herself and had a scratch along one cheek that still leaked red even though the smearing suggested she had attempted to wipe off the worst of it. "I cleaned out our first aid supplies," she said, kneeling in front of Phantom and dropping everything on the floor between them, "but I think you need stitches."

Phantom shook his head. "Just use those butterfly things."

"They're not meant for this type of wound!"

"But they'll work."

"Not well enough. That's too deep, and you know it."

"And you know I heal fast. I've had worse, and you know that, too. It's not like you can see the bone this time."

Even through the screen, Lancer could see Jazz blanch, and he felt a bit unsteady at the idea himself. He'd known Phantom must have gotten badly hurt in fights before—he'd seen the damage left behind, at least—but he also knew the ghost boy was resilient, and to have been cut so badly as to see _bone_….

But that didn't make sense. He'd attended enough of Jack and Maddie Fenton's lectures to know that ghosts were made of pure ectoplasm. They didn't have bones; they merely had the appearance of bone structure, the appearance of muscle and sinew and everything else beneath that facsimile of skin. The lack of that true rigidity meant that they could stretch themselves and snap back into their usual form with ease.

Lancer watched, not trusting himself to speak and not really daring to interrupt, as Jazz helped the ghost boy peel back his suit from the wound and begin cleaning it. As appearances went, it all looked very realistic. If he imagined for a moment that it was _red_ and not _green_ that covered their hands, that Jazz was tending to Danny _Fenton_ and not Danny _Phantom_….

Phantom hissed between his teeth, wincing, but Jazz continued to dab on what Lancer assumed was some sort of disinfectant. "Healing powers or no healing powers," she said without looking up, "you'll be better off if we clean this before we try to close it. Are you _sure_ you don't want me to get the needle and thread?"

"Yes. You can't sew something straight if your life depended on it. Even I have a steadier hand than you."

"I can call Sam."

"Are you kidding? She'll kill me if she finds out about this."

"And she won't when she finds out you didn't tell her?"

"I'm not _going_ to tell her. That's the point. And she's been looking forward to this concert with her grandma for ages. I'm not going to ruin that for her just because Skulker showed up."

Lancer's eyebrows shot up. They _were_ talking about Miss Manson. And if Sam was involved in this, then surely Tucker and Danny were, too.

He supposed he shouldn't be too surprised. All four students were defensive of Phantom, though Jazz was often the most vocal in spite of her parents' views. If Jazz had begun secretly helping Phantom, it wouldn't have been long before she got her brother Danny involved, and he doubted even a week would have gone by before Danny's friends had discovered the truth and begun helping, too.

This secret didn't explain everything, but it would explain the occasional absence, the persistent lack of sleep, and the way Danny sometimes favoured an arm or leg for a day or two. There were certainly occasions when the same applied to Sam and Tucker, and even though he didn't teach Jasmine anymore, he didn't doubt that it was true for her as well. It would have to be, if they were all working with Phantom.

But for some reason, Danny appeared to be taking the brunt of it. Perhaps it came down to individual skills. Jazz and Sam were obviously on call for help after the fight, though from Jazz's injury, she was no stranger to combat, and he knew Miss Manson well enough to doubt she'd willingly be left out of a fight for long. Tucker was a technological genius, certainly an asset for fighting ghosts like Technus—and, Lancer suspected, for tweaking the FentonWorks weaponry.

Sam was more athletic than Danny. Lancer knew that, especially after Ms. Tetslaff had filled him in on what had happened leading up to the President's Challenge Fitness Test. But when Danny was awake, he had a quicker reaction time than she—Lancer had seen how well he dodged flying missiles in a cafeteria food fight, sometimes winding up clean while everyone else was covered—and he might have better hand-eye coordination as well. He might be the one who was usually on the front lines of the fight.

Except that didn't make sense, either. Phantom had appeared at the school plenty of times, and Danny was nowhere to be found. But Lancer refused to believe Danny's sister and best friends were involved in something he wasn't. He must be missing something.

"I don't know how long this is going to stay," Jazz was saying as she taped gauze across the wound. "We'll need to keep an eye on this."

Phantom groaned. "We _always_ have to keep an eye on it. And we always have to keep an eye on the Ghost Portal, and on Vlad, and on everyone else. Geez, sometimes I just feel like I'm either always watching people or always being watched."

"Danny Phantom is always going to draw the public eye," Jazz pointed out as she finally sat back. "That's why Amorpho thought you'd be a good one to impersonate."

Phantom rolled his eyes. "Don't remind me. At least he listened to me and hasn't come back. I don't want to deal with that again." He sighed. "Don't psychoanalyze me or anything, but sometimes…. I just get tired."

Jazz carefully laid a hand on his right shoulder. "You're allowed to be tired. You're trying to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. You need to take a break sometimes."

"The last time I tried that…." Phantom trailed off. "It didn't end well."

Jazz narrowed her eyes. "When did you last try that?"

"Just trust me on that, okay?" He shrugged off her hand and winced. "I don't think this will be completely healed by morning."

"So stop moving it and just go upstairs to bed. I'll cover for you. If I tell Mom and Dad you're sick, they might let you stay home from school tomorrow."

_What? _None of that made sense. Why would Jazz tell her parents anything about Phantom? How could Phantom have managed to hide a bed in the house of ghost hunters, even with the help of their kids? And what was this talk of school?

But Phantom was shaking his head. "I can't. I've got that algebra test tomorrow, and I can't afford to fail it."

"Mr. Falluca will let you make it up if you missed because you were sick."

"After I've missed so many other classes? Jazz, he's gonna think I'm faking."

"Even with a note?"

"Signed by Mom and Dad? Yeah. You have no idea how many times Sam has forged their signatures. I doubt he trusts their judgement. Besides, if I pretend to be sick, they might think it's a ghost disease and set up the ecto-containment unit again. I'll just do what I always do. It'll be fine."

"Danny, you can't keep doing this. It's not going to be fine. You're sliding. At least let me help more than I am. If you're not going to rest, will you at least let me help you study?"

"Just forget I said anything."

"Danny—"

"You don't need to mother me, Jazz." Phantom tried to get up, cried out in pain, and floated upwards until he could straighten his legs and stand instead. "I appreciate your help. I really do. But I can—" He broke off, and Lancer realized he was staring at the door. He jerked sideways, out of sight, but he heard the ghost boy mutter, "Oh, crud."

"What?" Jazz's voice was instantly wary.

"You remember what I was saying about being watched?"

Lancer knew it was foolish, but he held his breath and pressed himself against the rough brick. He _had_ been watching. He _had_ been eavesdropping. He _should_ have made his presence known, gone in to help Jazz patch up the ghost boy—

But Jasmine had obviously done the same thing multiple times before, and nothing he had heard made sense anyway.

Danny Phantom was a ghost.

He didn't attend school.

Except Lancer _knew_ Falluca had been preparing exams for grades nine and ten. Algebra and trigonometry. He'd been reviewing them during his prep period in the staff room today.

Lancer shut his eyes. _No_. It still didn't make sense. There had to be some rational explanation. Perhaps Phantom regretted not having a chance to finish his education and elected to invisibly attend classes at Casper High. Perhaps he went to classes with Danny and Tucker and Sam, as they were closer to his age than Jazz, and perhaps he tested himself, made himself do the same homework and take the same tests, so that he could improve himself. So that he could learn.

But that wouldn't explain why he was worried about missing too many classes when he could simply do the same next year. It wouldn't explain his worry over a failing grade.

And it certainly didn't explain why he had referred to Mr. and Mrs. Fenton as _Mom and Dad_ and had often had young Miss Manson forge their signatures for a sick note he shouldn't need.

"Mr. Lancer?"

The incredulous voice was Phantom's, and he opened his eyes to see the young ghost staring up at him. He stood on the step, perhaps still too tired to fly when he didn't need to, though Lancer hadn't heard the door so Phantom must have stepped through the wall. Worry was evident on his face, sharpening his gaze, but it wasn't enough to overwrite the exhaustion carved into every line. Frankly, Lancer was surprised that Phantom's suit had already begun knitting itself back together, though it was easy to see Jazz's handiwork through the tears. It was easy to see the severity of the wounds Jazz had tried to cover, too; even the piece of gauze on Phantom's forehead was already tinged green as if the wound hadn't stopped bleeding. Or rather, seeping ectoplasm.

A moment later, the kitchen door opened and Jazz stepped out, holding the Fenton Peeler. Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. "Mr. Lancer?" she echoed.

And then Phantom's eyes widened. "Oh, _crud_," he repeated, rising sharply into the air. "I've gotta g—"

"No." Jazz reached out and snagged Phantom's ankle before he was more than a foot above her head. That wouldn't stop him from phasing through her grip, Lancer knew, but Phantom didn't try. "How long were you here, Mr. Lancer?"

_How much did you see?_ That was her real question. _How much did you hear?_ He swallowed. He could explain away more of what he'd seen than what he'd heard, but if he did so, he wouldn't ever be satisfied. He knew the saying about letting sleeping dogs lie, but he was too curious for that. Especially when he had a feeling that the truth might help to explain the real reason behind one of the other problems that was plaguing him.

"Long enough, then," Jazz said grimly when he didn't answer. She released Phantom, and instead of taking off, he floated back down to rejoin them on the step.

"So you heard all of it?" Phantom asked fearfully.

Lancer tried to smile apologetically. "I never meant to—"

"It doesn't matter what you meant," Jazz said sharply. "I never meant to, either. It matters what you do now."

What was he to do? He still wasn't entirely convinced he understood half of what was going on. "I'm afraid—"

"You can't tell them," Phantom said quickly. "_Please_. I know they'll probably take it okay, but they still…." He shook his head, stopping with a hiss and a wobble that had Jazz put a steadying hand on his shoulder. "There's too much right now, and finding out from you would be even worse." He cast a quick glance at Jazz before adding, "It would just be…bad. Jazz figures they'd blame themselves. She keeps telling me prolonging it won't help, but I'm hoping I'll figure out a way to make things…less bad."

"What Danny's trying to say," Jazz said, "is that he's not mentally prepared to tell them the truth any more than we believe they're mentally prepared to hear it. It will turn their world upside down, Mr. Lancer. If I can at least gather enough information to answer half of the questions I know they'll have, I'll feel more confident when Danny decides to break the news to them."

_Danny. _She kept calling him Danny. Not _Phantom_, like she was so careful to at school. He'd first thought that she did so to give the appearance of distance, but the communication between them…. That was undeniable. The amount of information they could confer and discern from a single look; the way Phantom deferred to Jazz now when he had argued with her earlier, knowing exactly how far he could push her; the way they knew each other well enough to pick up on and expand upon partial thoughts….

That kind of interaction took years to build.

Phantom had hardly appeared more than a year ago.

He was staring a riddle in the face and had no idea what to make in answer. _Why is a raven like a writing desk?_ Except this wasn't mere nonsense; the concern on the two faces looking at him was very real, Jazz's seriousness equalled only by Phantom's desperation. _What house does one enter blind and come out seeing?_ A schoolmaster he may be, but even if the answer was as straightforward as that one, he was still blind to it.

This wasn't just concern over how the Fentons would react to their children helping Phantom or even how often Phantom apparently frequented their house. There was far more to it than that. He could see that much. He just couldn't see what must be an obvious connection between it all.

But he could imagine. He could imagine what it would be like if green ectoplasm were red blood, if Phantom were Fenton. And he could imagine a number of reasonable explanations for everything he had seen and heard if he took that as truth. But surely it wasn't possible. The idea itself was ludicrous. The Fentons were ghost hunters.

But they were also inventors.

And once you eliminate the _impossible_, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.

"Danny?" Mr. Lancer asked cautiously. If he imagined those green eyes as blue, the hair black instead of white, and that he wore jeans and a T-shirt instead of the HAZMAT suit—

A HAZMAT suit.

Like the ones the Jack and Maddie Fenton ran around in all the time.

"_Brave New World_! It's not really you, is it?"

And there was that silent communication between the two again. Jazz nodded, and Phantom sighed, looking resigned. "Promise you won't tell?"

He couldn't promise that. But he could promise not to tell _yet_. "It sounds like we will have a lot to discuss before anything is said."

Phantom frowned, looked down at his feet for a moment, and then back up at Mr. Lancer. "I don't want to tear apart their world. Or yours."

"I can assure you I already have a better appreciation for Alice than I ever had before."

He still hadn't made the promise, and Phantom knew it, but his shoulders slumped. A bright ring of light sprang up at his waist and split apart, leaving Danny Fenton in their wake. He sagged against his sister. "Then can you at least go easier on me in English?"

"Danny!" Jazz admonished, though whether or not it was because of her brother's request, Lancer wasn't sure. The light appeared again, stealing away Fenton and replacing him with Phantom, and Jazz seemed happier.

Did he heal faster as a ghost? Was she worried about what the damage to his body would be if he kept those injuries while as a human?

Ghost. Human. Was that really what Danny was, or had he become something else entirely? Lancer really _did_ feel like Alice in Wonderland, trapped in a world of nonsensical logic. But this strange world had become the only one Danny could inhabit, and Lancer knew he had merely glimpsed it.

"Maybe I should make something, and we can sit down and discuss this," Jazz offered.

"Around what, our nonexistent kitchen table?"

Jazz groaned. "We'll have to figure out how to explain that. And I haven't even cleaned up the stains on the floor. I'm sorry, Mr. Lancer, but you'll have to excuse me. I need to get that done before Mom and Dad come home."

"Maybe not," he asserted. "Maybe it would be better—"

"We can't tell them!" Danny interrupted. "Not right now. Weren't you even listening?"

"Maybe it would be better," Lancer continued, "if I explained to them that I witnessed Phantom foil an attempt by the ghost Skulker to kidnap their son and that your dining table was the only casualty?" He managed a proper smile for young Mr. Fenton this time. "And I'll treat the story you spin for them as an extra credit assignment and put it toward your grade."

Danny grinned. "I think I can work with that. Thanks."


	2. Chapter 2

"It would seem," Lancer finished, "that Danny Phantom was trying to protect your family as much as he tries to protect everyone else in this town."

Jack and Maddie Fenton exchanged glances from their place on their couch; Jazz sat beside them, while Lancer and Danny had taken the free chairs. That Mr. and Mrs. Fenton were reluctant to believe Phantom would help them was obvious; it had been all Jasmine could do to stop them from immediately activating their Fenton Anti-Creep Alarm. But his insistence on the subject seemed to be puzzling them, and Danny had chimed in often to make good use of Lancer's support for Phantom—even if he managed to appear reluctant whenever he did so.

Really, Lancer had always found young Mr. Fenton's excuses rather pitiful, but these were inventive without being obviously contrived. _I think Skulker was targeting me because you're my parents._ Not the most comforting point, but a valid one. Perfectly believable, given the situation; Jack and Maddie Fenton surely made enemies of the ghosts they hunted. _He's the Ghost Zone's Greatest Hunter; of _course_ he'd pit himself against you._ A self-proclaimed point, but not one Lancer could dispute, given what he knew of the ghost. _This is a weakness. The only thing that stopped him from exploiting it was Phantom._ Another point that couldn't be disputed, particularly given that it was true in more ways than one. _I'm lucky it wasn't worse._

"Phantom saved me," Danny repeated quietly. "I know you don't trust him, but he's the reason I'm not lost somewhere in the Ghost Zone right now."

Maddie closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose in thought. "Ghosts always try to do this, Danny," she explained. "They want you to see them in the best light possible so they can exploit your trust later. Phantom and Skulker may have been working together in this." She looked at her son then, adding, "I know how much you two look up to Phantom, but you can't trust him. That might be the last mistake you make." Her gaze suddenly switched back to him. "Surely you aren't falling for his ploy, Mr. Lancer."

"I am inclined to agree with your children in this instance, given what I witnessed."

"That's only playing into the ghost's agenda," Maddie pointed out. "Ghosts are masters of trickery. Phantom is hardly different."

"I did work with him once, Mads." It was a feat for Jack Fenton to look uncomfortable, especially when the subject was ghosts, but he managed a close approximation. "I told you about that. Plasmius threatened my family, and _no one_ threatens my family."

"One good deed does not undo the past."

"But one bad mistake ruins everything else?" Jazz exclaimed. "That's a double standard, Mom, and you know it! You can't treat ghosts differently than people."

"They aren't human, Jazz," Maddie said in the tone of one who had had this argument all too often before.

"No, but they were once." Jazz bit her lip, glanced at Danny so quickly that Lancer nearly missed it, and amended, "Most of them, anyway. Phantom is."

He was beginning to get a better appreciation of exactly how much Jazz did for her little brother.

Danny had had enough time to get cleaned up. He didn't look _good_ now, not by any stretch of the imagination. He had stayed as Phantom for as long as possible; Lancer had gotten a brief explanation from Jazz he'd only partially understood about accelerated healing due to the regenerative effects of residual ectoplasm, but he could appreciate the results. While Danny was still clearly exhausted and his wounds were still present, he no longer appeared in dire need of stitches, he was in no danger of bleeding through the gauze, and some of the tiny cuts and scratches that had marred him earlier were gone. Lancer was already unsure if he had imagined the bruises.

Lancer had never thought too much about Phantom's resilience before, but it certainly made sense.

It also explained why there never seemed to be any evidence of Mr. Baxter's abuse of his classmate. Lancer had turned a blind eye to that for too long, but without Danny so much as going to his parents with a complaint, let alone anything official made to the school…. It became difficult to persuade the school board that Casper High should remain open if it wasn't bringing in any money from football games, and Dash _was _the star of the team. Kwan was very good, but he couldn't carry the team by himself, and Casper High sustained too much damage to rely solely on handouts from the school board.

They'd exceeded their repair budget the first week the ghost attacks had begun, and things had only gotten worse.

But money should never have been a reason to ignore a child's abuse, and Dash's bullying of Danny was nothing less than that. What good was Casper High as a school if its students weren't safe within its halls?

Well, as safe as they could be, given the ghost attacks.

It was rather surprising they hadn't been shut down anyway. Elmerton didn't see nearly as many attacks.

Granted, no ghost attended their school, but despite the attacks, Amity Park's reputation for educational quality remained a shade better than that of their bitter rival.

Lancer only hoped it still would once things changed.

"As I see it, Mr. and Mrs. Fenton—"

Maddie held up one hand. "No, Mr. Lancer, I'm sorry. You've made your opinion very clear, but I'm afraid I don't share it, and like Jack, I'm not willing to compromise our children's safety. Phantom might have saved you this time, Danny, but it's all too likely that he simply has a plan in mind for later. Go fetch a Spectre Deflector. I expect you to wear it until further notice."

"Mom!" The exclamation came from Jazz; Danny's expression was frozen in horror, and Lancer doubted it was all for show. "You can't make Danny wear that!"

"As soon as I check over the other ones, we'll all be wearing them," Maddie said, her voice making it clear she wouldn't stand for argument. "I've half a mind to distribute them free to the entire town, but I'm afraid we can't afford that right now. If we could shut down the Fenton Ghost Portal without repercussions—"

"Wait, shut down the Portal?" Danny's horror had melted into puzzlement. "We can _do_ that?"

This was news to Lancer as well. For all the Fenton Ghost Information sessions he'd attended—and that was many, despite the dismal attendance of the FGIs these days—the Fentons had never mentioned the possibility of shutting down their portal and cutting the ghosts off from what was surely their main entry point. Lancer knew the portal was shuttered, but he'd always had doubts about it staying closed, and the revelation of Phantom's identity hardly inspired confidence.

"Not easily, Danny-boy. Not without a lot of bad mumbo jumbo that your mom's been telling me about."

Lancer saw Danny swallow, look at his sister, ignore the worry that was clear in her expression, and make a choice. Carefully, the boy asked, "Is it because the Ghost Zone is connected with our world?"

Maddie's eyes widened. "You know about that?"

Danny shifted uncomfortably. "I've picked up some stuff here and there," he said vaguely.

"Phantom told us," Jazz added, and Danny glared at her. "I was doing some research on ghosts and ghost envy, and he agreed to answer a few questions."

"Jazz—"

"Don't start, Mom. If Phantom really wanted to hurt us, he would have done it by now."

"Our previous encounters with Phantom do lend credence to Jasmine's theory," Lancer put in. He was trying to be helpful. If Jack and Maddie would at least agree that Phantom wasn't solely a menace, it would make the eventual conversation easier on Danny. And that conversation _would_ happen. Despite Danny's worries, Lancer planned to encourage him to have it.

But because of Danny's worries, Lancer also planned to have a contingency plan in place. He didn't fear that Jack and Maddie wouldn't accept the truth about their son; he feared they might think it a terrible hoax of Phantom's at first, and he feared the psychological toll on the entire family once the truth became undeniable. Jazz's concerns that they weren't currently mentally prepared for the truth were hardly unfounded, after all. Still, at the very least, he would offer Danny a place to stay for the duration if it came to that. He would just rather make plans to ensure it didn't.

Truth was, though, Lancer wasn't sure his plans would make a whit of difference. He didn't really know the Fentons well enough to know how they'd react, and even imagining himself in their situation was difficult. There would be horror, guilt, disgust, denial—angry, defensive denial and tearful, insistent denial—and maybe blank numbness, but in what order? Where would the acceptance finally fall? Initially, before the horror set in, or after, once it had begun working its way through and the need for forgiveness that may never come became overwhelming?

Yes, he could certainly understand why Danny had not told his parents.

But keeping the secret for long would only serve to make the situation worse.

Lancer was supposed to be a responsible adult. However much Jazz fancied herself grown up and fully matured, she wasn't. He was. Which meant he needed to do the responsible thing, and covering for a secret like this…. That wasn't it. Not in the long term. Not even for very long in the short term.

He needed to do whatever he could to change the Fentons' view of Phantom, but he feared they might not unless they were presented with undeniable proof of Phantom's humanity.

The same proof that could tear them apart.

"You did say Phantom helped you before, Dad, and not just when the entire town was under attack." Danny's voice was tentative again, but Lancer was beginning to figure out which emotions were part of his mask. Danny was clearly referring to an incident he knew all about but was pretending he didn't, so his uncertainty couldn't be genuine—unless it was merely there because he was unsure of what reaction he'd receive. "What if he wasn't just helping you out to earn his freedom? What if he really _was_ helping because it was the right thing to do?"

"I never said anything about giving him his freedom, Danny-boy."

Lancer saw the flash of panic this time, could recognize the falsity of the smile Danny plastered on his face. "But you would've captured him if he'd been close enough to help you like that," reasoned Danny. "Besides, wasn't that the time with the Fenton Weasel? You told us about that, too, not just Mom."

This time, it was Jack's turn to look uncertain, and Jazz stepped right in to back up her little brother. They _had_ been at this for a while. "Oh, right, that time. I lectured you for _weeks_ about capturing him in the first place, but as usual you didn't listen to me."

"And," Danny continued before either of his parents could open their mouths, "if he can be trusted with that, maybe he can be trusted with something like this. As a trial. I'll even carry ghost hunting weapons with me at all times, I swear. Maybe he can even help you guys figure out the Portal. Why exactly can't you just close it, again? Phantom never exactly mentioned there being any repercussions of that."

"Danny, we are not having this conversation now. Go get the Spectre Deflector."

Danny still didn't move, instead belligerently crossing his arms. "Mom, seriously. It's connected with our world. I get that. But why can't we shut it down? What would happen?"

"Danny."

"But it would stop all the ghosts! We wouldn't need to worry about them. Phantom might not even need to be around all the time if he doesn't have to fight any of them."

"Listen to your mother, Danny-boy."

"Just answer my question!"

"I confess I would also be interested in the answer," Lancer interjected mildly.

Maddie's lips thinned, but she evidently decided that she and Jack were suitable protection for Danny in the meantime and didn't wish to have a fight in front of a guest. After a pointed look from her, Jack coughed and flashed Lancer a brilliant smile. "As much as I love talking about ghosts, weren't you here to discuss Danny?"

"You can go, Jazz," Maddie added quietly.

"Mom!"

"No, she can stay." Danny's hurried assurance was no doubt born out of fear of losing an ally, lest he find himself in need of one. Lancer couldn't blame him; he wasn't sure he would be able to help the boy if it came down to it. "She's…probably gonna end up helping me with my homework and stuff anyway. Maybe scheduling? A schedule might help…."

Lancer cleared his throat. "That is certainly an admirable idea, Mr. Fenton, if you can stick to it." Looking at Jack and Maddie, he clarified, "I'm afraid Danny's record hasn't improved since our last discussion." _I'm sorry_, he wanted to say to his young student, but he couldn't suddenly appear unconcerned about the matter. It _was_ still an issue, even if he now knew the truth, and he had pressed for this meeting.

"We've offered to check his homework," Maddie said, glancing at her son, "but..."

_Say something, Danny_. It was the perfect opportunity for him to pipe up with an excuse, believable or not, but he remained silent.

"I'm afraid restricting his gaming time hasn't been effective, if you've seen no change," Maddie continued apologetically. "We've been hesitant to cut him off from Sam and Tucker. I'm sure they help him, and you know how teenagers are, Mr. Lancer. They never seem to want to come to their parents for help. I mentioned grounding Danny for two weeks once, on a trial basis, but Jack talked me out of it." She turned a small, somewhat apologetic smile in Danny's direction when she noticed his expression; clearly, his parents had never come close to instigating this particular punishment for any considerable length of time. "He reminded me that sometimes kids need an escape, and the real issue here might not be Danny's inability to apply himself but an inability to focus or an uncertainty about how to tackle a deeper issue."

Jazz, surprisingly, looked as if something suddenly made a lot more sense. "That's why you and Dad haven't been talking quite as much about your inventions, isn't it? Because you've been trying to give Danny space and give him the opportunity to open up to you and not have the conversation taken over by ghosts."

Maddie leaned over to touch Danny's arm, though she withdrew her hand when Danny flinched away. "You never seem to want to talk to us anymore, honey."

"I'm a teenager, Mom. You _just_ finished saying we don't talk to our parents."

"Sweetie, please don't twist my words like that. I know Sam doesn't have a good relationship with her parents, but I know Tucker gets along well with his. We'd like you to know that we _are_ here for you if you'll only come to us. The problems we solve don't have to be related to ghosts to be important."

Lancer could see the defensive line in Danny's posture, and he knew—he _knew_—how this was going to go if he let it play out. So he didn't. "If I may," he interrupted, "perhaps the problem is tied to ghosts after all?"

"_What_?" Danny's yelp of shock was nothing compared to the betrayal on his face or the thunderous anger beneath it. For the briefest of moments, his eyes seemed to burn green, and he spat, "You don't know _anything_, Mr. Lancer."

No, he suspected he didn't.

Not compared the whole truth or the little Jazz knew of it, at least. But he knew enough for this. "Forgive me, Danny, but am I wrong in thinking that you and Jasmine do not share your parents' views on Phantom?"

"What does Phantom have anything to do with this?" Jazz shrilled. She looked no less betrayed than Danny, but fear played on her face more than on Danny's. Danny had not forgiven him for this apparent betrayal; Jazz was already thinking ahead to what it might mean. She couldn't see where he was going with this.

"I'm not," Lancer concluded when neither child answered him. "Could it be, then, that in defiance of your parents, and perhaps out of loyalty to one you think of as a friend, you help Phantom?"

He saw the comprehension dawn in Danny's eyes, saw Jazz's shoulders sag as she released her breath. They weren't in the clear, but this was a better route than the one they'd first feared.

"It would, after all, explain the ghost's motivations." He looked at the Fenton parents now. "Rather than trickery, Phantom might simply be acting to protect his friends. Or _assets_, if you do not currently believe him capable of friendship." It was a perfectly logical explanation, one he had found himself believing—and may have continued believing, had he not stayed to overhear more of the conversation or if the pieces had not been so carefully laid out in front of him. "If your children have formed an alliance with Phantom, they are hardly in danger from him."

Surprisingly, Jack was the one to break the silence that had begun to stretch. "Is this true?"

Neither child made eye contact with any of the adults.

"You're working with Phantom?" Maddie clearly had no trouble believing that conclusion, either. "Both of you? How long has this been going on?"

"I've been doing it for long enough," Jazz finally whispered, "that I believe him more than I believe what you've been telling me about him. Scientists have to have open minds, and you two have a big blind spot when it comes to him." Her voice had been getting stronger, gaining in confidence as she spoke. "He doesn't have an end game, some nefarious ulterior motive. He's _good_. A good soul. Death didn't _twist_ that, whatever you two think. Did you ever think that _that's_ why he's so powerful? Because his goodness is so pure that it not only survived his death but has sustained him in the afterlife to the point that he doesn't need to frequent the Ghost Zone as often as the other ghosts? That he's been getting stronger because his good deeds are what strengthen him?"

Maddie sighed. "You agree with your sister, don't you, Danny?"

"Phantom might've messed up before," Danny mumbled, "but he doesn't want to be evil."

"But for all of your help, for all that he told you about the Ghost Zone mirroring our world, for all that he seems to have been treating the symptoms rather than the disease— You yourself said that Phantom never mentioned what would happen if we shut down the Ghost Portal. Why do you think that is?"

"Because he didn't know?" Danny offered, finally looking at his mother.

"No," Jack said, "it would be because he didn't want to die again. Jazzy-pants, you know ghosts are sustained by the concentrated ectoplasm of the Ghost Zone. Phantom isn't exempt to that, and he doesn't have the ability to create natural portals."

"So he'd destabilize if the Portal were shut down?" Jazz asked cautiously.

"All ghosts caught in our world would. Maybe not immediately," Jack allowed, "and not the ones who've managed to tether themselves here some other way, but all the ones that have turned up since we opened the Fenton Ghost Portal? Including Phantom? They'd be torn apart molecule by molecule. Just slowly and painfully and not where we could analyze them."

"Then why haven't you shut it down already?" Lancer asked. He was surprised to find himself voicing the question, but he didn't regret it. He knew Jack and Maddie were scientists, that they wanted to study ghosts, but they wouldn't endanger the public like this, especially for so long, merely for the sake of capturing a specimen to study. They would have gone back to the drawing board and discovered a way of fishing ghosts out of the Ghost Zone that _didn't_ risk the entire town.

"We didn't realize it until after we'd built the Portal," Maddie said quietly. "We'd gone over the calculations countless times. Nothing had seemed out of place."

"Not until the Fenton Ghost Portal didn't work," Jack put in. "The designs for that baby were perfect. It should've started up like a dream!"

"But it didn't, so we went back over our notes. I saw it then. What it was supposed to need, what was supposed to sustain it. I was actually happy that it hadn't worked. And then when we came home and it was…." Maddie trailed off. "I thought that meant I'd been wrong, and I was _ecstatic_ to be wrong for once. But as time went on, I realized I wasn't. I couldn't be."

"Wrong about what?" Jazz and Lancer asked the question at the same time, but the seriousness of the situation seemed to sap away any humour the incident might have caused. Instead of teasing his sister or making some sarcastic remark, Danny stayed silent.

If Lancer had learned anything of Phantom, it was that silence was often associated with the most grave and impossible of situations, the ones where grit and determination may not be enough to pull through but must be tackled anyway. It meant acceptance of the inevitable, should it come to that, and a seriousness that couldn't be faced with humour alone. Too often, it meant _sacrifice_.

That scared him.

No child should be forced to contemplate that.

"The Portal contains a massive amount of energy," Maddie explained gently. "It's currently stabilized by the nature of our design, but the moment we move to shut it down, it would become unstable. Without an appropriate conduit…."

"It would explode," Jack finished. "Worse than anything we'd see if we forgot to change the filter for a few weeks. The Fenton Portal's slicing into the very fabric of our reality. You kids were taught about the energy released when an atom's split, right?" He didn't wait for them to nod before adding, "How many atoms do you think the Portal's sliced through?"

_Children of the Dust_, the Fentons believed the outpouring of energy, maybe the release of some sort of radiation along with all the free neutrons that would serve to extend the explosion, would be more devastating than a disaster like Chernobyl. They didn't want to try shutting it down until they'd devised a way to contain it, and from what he could gather, they hadn't figured out how.

"But…." Jazz licked her lips. "The Portal's slicing through air. It's not uranium. It's mostly nitrogen." She knew the truth. Lancer could see it. She just didn't want to admit it. Acknowledging that pit of fear in her stomach would make it real.

Unfortunately, he shared the feeling.

"Does that even matter if it's still enough energy to break an atom in half and start a crazy chain reaction?" Danny looked like he might be ill. "And there's still all the ectoplasm from the ghost side." He turned to his parents. "Mom, you said it needs a conduit or something like that?"

"We're working on it, honey. You don't need to worry about it."

But they wouldn't figure it out. That's what Danny and Jazz were worried about, and the thought disturbed Lancer, too. What didn't help matters was the knowledge that the Fenton children might know exactly what their parents were missing. He didn't know without talking to them, of course, but—

"I…I need to go." Danny stood up. "Sorry. Can we, um, reschedule?" He ran off without waiting for an answer.

"Danny, wait!" Jazz was the first to react, albeit too late to catch Danny, and by the time Lancer got to his feet, Danny was nowhere in sight.

Of course, that didn't mean much, now that he knew Danny could turn himself invisible and fly.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Lancer," Maddie said as Jazz rushed out in a futile attempt to catch her brother. "We shouldn't have burdened you with this knowledge. Please, trust that we're working on it and developing more effective weapons to combat all the ghosts in the meantime."

She had no idea what knowledge he was burdened with.

Ignorance really could be bliss.

But it could also be disaster.

Jack and Maddie _needed_ to understand Danny's situation. Lancer didn't want his inaction to lead to ruin as disastrous as the tragedy Jack and Maddie were already trying to prevent. "_I Never Promised You a Rose Garden_," he murmured, thinking of the horrible situation in which his young student had found himself.

"Pardon?"

Maddie must think he'd made some remark about their portal. He wished, if she did, that she were right. It would be a much simpler subject to discuss.

"Mr. and Mrs. Fenton, I have something I feel I should tell you."


End file.
